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AH, the sixties, the fabulous sixties! Who can remember them?
Drugs, for one thing. Wasn't that the time everyone was taking acid so they could see their veins light up all flourescent, and smoking grass, and actually giggling on it?
Let's see, the sixties: hard rock and soft rock, and psychedelia, and someone handing you flowers on the street, and signing letters "love and peace", and Kenny Everett first time around, and Afro hairstyles on white kids - boy, they had really long hair back then when you come to think of it. They thought mankind was going to be averted from its collision course by 1970.
Well, there it is - 1973! The guys on the street are still putting paint on their faces, only they're applying it more skillfully and it's more likely to be in pursuance of Alice Cooper's S and M trip than Portobello Road hippiedom. And Lou Reed now gets letters from boys asking whether they should become full-time gay, while Paul McCartney has to go out on the road and prove himself all over again. What's happened? We're what's happened. The fabulous seventies!
Naturally, it hasn't always been like this. It had to have a beginning somewhere, this hydra-headed pop monster. You won't believe this, kids, but there was a time, in fact, when John Lennon was considered something of an "'ardcase," when the Moody Blues used to do "Bye Bye Birdie" with balls and when bands generally only had three amps, but that was okay because nobody listened too much anyway. I guess you saw a re-run of the Shea Stadium concert. Yeah, it really was that bad. Listen, a lot of the time it was a good deal worse.
You can't tell people that, though. They just don't want to know. You point out to them that the Swinging Blue Jean and the Remo Four were really the pits, that Sandie Shaw was just freckles and big pair of mincers, and that Frank Ifield and Pet Clark were bigger than the Dave Clark Five at one time - and still exist! - and they merely shake their heads with a cocky smile on their mugs. They know better. They, of course, being Americans.
These days nostalgia broods in the American system as a perverse kind of homesickness for times whose essence was simpler and easier to grasp. "The Last Picture Show's" success illustrated the way the public's inclination was heading, and in the past two years a whole wash of remembrance has swept across its mass music culture, flinging high into the air such rock and roll icons of the fifties as Bo Diddley, Fats Domino and Chuck Berry.
Acts like the Orlons, the Five Satins and the Coasters have suddenly found themselves playing at Madison Square Gardens before 18,000 people when a future in the clubs appeared to be all that was left for them.
Brenda Lee, a tough little kid in her thirties, emerges from nowhere to tour the country in a rock and roll package. And the second biggest grossing movie in America today is "Let The Good Times Roll," composed of footage of recent rock and roll performances spliced in with documentary of the fifties.
Every time you turn on the television there's an ad for some greasy old hit of ten or 15 years ago. "Hi! Remember the fabulous fifties?" Occasionally it seems like a suspension of time.
There are a lot of kids around, however, who neither remember the fifties nor think what they've heard of them sounds so fabulous. These are the punks of the seventies, kids who bought Beatle records in their pre-teens, grew up with Led Zeppelin and Grand Funk, and have finally realised they require their own mouthpiece.
The mature bands like the Dead, the Allmans and the Band don't excite them. They're looking not for intelligence, but for something flash and dynamic, that burns quickly, that's easily disposable, and whose only aim is to entertain for the instant. Through a kind of perversity which is not totally explicable, except in that opposites attract, this audience continually looks to England rather than America as the desired source. Maybe it's because they've been soaked in the musical mystique of England from the moment they were able to absorb the influence of the airwaves.
These kids are mostly aged from ten to 21. Take Toby. He's 20 and a rock writer, which in America, where every kid seems to be involved pretty deeply into rock music, makes him fairly typical. Toby's great dream is to save up his pennies to get to England and see the Troggs.
It doesn't matter so much if they turn out to be lousy; it's enough that he will have seen them. He'll groove on the stage where they've played partly because he likes their records, but mostly because they represent that English beat movement which hit America in the early sixties. Toby hardly saw any of it, except on television, but he's never forgotten the impact.
It was a natural move, therefore, to cater for this need in Americans punkdom for English groups that had often been heard but rarely seen, particularly at a time when musial nostalgia generally hung in the air like an all-pervasive mist of exotica.
New York promoter Ron Deisener was the first to realise and act upon it earlier this year. "Everybody had this idea!" he said, "everybody!" He was positively effulgent. "Promoters, the guy in the street, the deadbeat cat and the hustler - everybody you talked to said 'hey, I got a great idea! A British rock revival show!" Then he gave a cocksure little smile. "But it takes the guy to do it."
In the end, Deisener wasn't the guy, although he certainly negotiated all the initial moves. In concert with the William Morris Agency, the biggest bookers in the States, he contacted a manager and promoter based in Manchester, Danny Betesh, who looked after Freddie Garrity, formerly of Freddie and the Dreamers.
Freddie eventually had to bow out because of prior committments for the summer, but they went chasing. Dave Clark wouldn't do it because he apparently had money enough, but they caught up with Peter Noone at a play he was doing in Oxford and he agreed to top a package bill.
Wayne Fontana they then found, but he was in hospital with an ulcer. Pretty soon the other acts fell into place: Gerry and The Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, and the Searchers. It was going to be bannered: "The 1960s British Rock Invasion (Revisited)", yes, rock, not beat music. It was funny, but still, the British were coming the British were coming! At long last. Toby couldn't wait.
Then, as it came together, Deisener opted out. He was heavily engaged in the Schaeffer Music Festivals, and the venture had now reached the proportions of a major bus tour along the lines of the old Dick Clark packages. So Richard Nader stepped in.
Nader is the figure behind the rock and roll revivalist performances and "Let The Good Times Roll" was a production of all the acts he's brought back in recent years. He was ideal because he had the savvy and the weight to push things through. He scheduled the rock invasion for appearances in 21 major cities in the States and Canada, including the Garden and the L.A. Forum between June 26 and July 22.
With his full, wavy hair and heavy, brown features, Nader's richly entrepreneurial presence can be felt imposing itself on the evening of June 25 in an upstairs room of the English Pub, which stands at 57th and Seventh Avenue. The room is full of journalists, and though several of them are punk writers there are a lot of straights, too, most of them from the English dailies, and they're asking this cute-looking little blond chap, in his stylish, grey English suit, what the hell he's doing there. And Peter Noone, who used to be Herman, and ever shall be in the minds of most of us, tosses the same blonded hair that once was mouse brown, opens his china blue mince pies, flashes his nice, capped teeth, and suddenly the incongruity of it all snaps open.
From pantos and small clubs, from La Dolce Vitas and the Stockton Fiestas from hundreds of watering holes all over Britain . . . the British are coming! Rooted out like hibernating creatures, dusted off as one does old suits, they're brought back as a spectacle for the edification of the great American public. The trunk in the attic had been opened, and everyone was surprised to find the familiar but half-forgotten contents still there.
They'd come straight from the airport; booze was still on the breath of some of them. They trooped in as if they owned the joint and made right for the bar, with the exception of Wayne Fontana in his black shades, curling his cocky Northern lip, who sat down on a table; Wayne who has taken the pledge for the tour. He was still unmistakable, and so was Mike Pender with his long hair and John McNally, fuzzy-bearded, both of the Searchers, and blond Billy Kingsley, who used to play bass with the Merseybeats but has wound up as one of the Pacemakers, and absolutely old Gerry Marsden himself, all red-faced with the heat and wearing the same quizzical expression.
They were animated old photos of themselves, but with the colour faded a little, leaving them oddly grey and washed-out. It was both amusing and pathetic to see them in their second flush of youth. This was their reprieve, a final chance to grab spoils most of them believed had long since melted away.
In return, they were always deeply grateful. They dutifully posed for the photos in soccer-style pictures, and right at the front, the captain of the team, Richard Nader eased himself in. Click click. One for posterity. Count the originals who aren't there. None of the Pacemakers, none of the Dakotas, none of the Mindbenders . . . the flame that burns quickly.
"I don't believe this!" murmurs one of the photographers for an American teenybop mag. "This is the funniest thing I've ever been to."
Herman/Peter poses with his French wife, Mireille. Twenty-one gold hits to his credit. He looks expensive; the years haven't done anything but improve him. The face of a teenybop angel. It's nevertheless hard to imagine him now without his guest spot image of the Cilla Black and Cliff Richard shows.
He and Gerry, who had a long run in "Charlie Girl" with Anna Neagle, haven't done too badly . . . Herman/Peter finally answers the questions as to why he'd come. "You see," he says almost reprovingly, "there are still people here who haven't seen us."
Old Herman freak Toby vigorously nods his head, with its heavy halo of fuzz and for an instant there can't be two more dissimilar yet sympathetic people in New York.
There were 13,000 people at Madison Square Gardens last Wednesday, and this meant some moms and dads, and old biddies, reformed grease, pure English music nuts, English people resident in New York, 25-year-old secretaries who remembered it all from way back then, and a lot of young teenyboppers who wouldn't have known Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas from the Young Rascals.
It wasn't a Led Zeppelin audience, and it wasn't a bunch of screamers for David Cassidy. Who knows why the chicklets were there? Possibly they'd seen a picture of Herman in Sixteen or Fave; maybe there was some unexplained stirring in their collective sub-conscious. But they knew it was English. That meant it must be okay, didn't it? That meant it must be fab gear.
There were passes on the door for Dave Mason, and Richard Starkey plus two. George Harrison was in town. No one saw any of them. Lennon was in Washington, attending the Watergate hearings. He most probably wouldn't have gone, anyway. They say he has no particular fondness for the days of the Liverpool sound or the other groups that originated with it. No nostalgia there. Brian Epstein is long dead, his stable has been dissipated to various corners of the world. Liverpool has settled back into what it was before all the fuss. Somewhere up there Tommy Quickly and a few of the others are probably still kicking around. No one much remembers, or particularly cares . . . in England.

But New York! Can there really be 13,000 people here? Last night at Saratoga, there were only 1,500. That's still often as many as these groups played to in the States first time around. It has been hard on them even then, though the British press didn't properly tell us. It was always the same. They'd come over and the Beatles or the Stones would be touring, too, and it would be they who stole the limelight and played the biggest venues. Herman understands. He was as big in those days.
But for Wayne Fontana . . . He skips out onto that stage like a small cup in a huge saucer, and he's confronted with this multitude - Wayne, who hasn't played much in a while - and small Union Jacks are waving - there's even more people wearing shirts made out of the flag - and his eyes blink rapidly and he gets that familiar thump in his chest, just trying to take in the scope of it all.
He's wearing the waistcoat and trousers of a grey suit, together with a purple shirt, and out he bounces like a giddy top, singing "Get Down," in this loud pub voice, and in that very moment Madion Square Garden is turned upside down and shrinks to a tenth of its size. It becomes a cabaret club somewhere up north. We're sitting there at the table with the scampi and the chicken in a basket, and pints are being passed over our heads.
We're watching the resident singer work the front tables. The man holding the tankard by our elbow is saying loudly to his wife, in a sober considered way, "'is voice isn't too bad, is it, but I don't think much of 'is group." He's waiting for the stripper, but the singer wants to do one of his old hits, and the man grumbles into his beer. He sighs impatiently, and his wife tells him to shush. Her hair is freshly unravelled from the carbon rollers, and a Pimms rests in a plump hand. It's Saturday night because it's cabaret time . . .

Leer

This image was like a flash of Zircon. An hallucination that recurred if one's eyes were shut. But Wayne was unconscious of it all; he was doing "Groovy Kind of Love," and "Love Train" and "Game of Love" - he always did have a bit of a reputation for loving them up - and then "Love The One You're With": "I know this is supposed to be a ten-year revival, but you can't be doing old songs all the time, can ya?" And he gives the thirtyish blonde on the table nearest the stage a saucy leer, and she simpers and almost gets a piece of chicken skin stuck in her uppers. "Settle down," he jokes, "settle down."
We settle down. On comes Gerry and the Pacemakers.
GERRY is a trouper and he works hard for his audience. He understands, most notably, the techniques and etiquette of panto. Americans have never been exposed to English panto. There's no question that they'd adore it. They would shout "behind you!" when the heroine is about to cop it from the wicked fairy. They would obediently sing along when they were told. They are very compliant audiences.
Thus Gerry can call out, "how many people are there from New York?" and they'll all cheer, and then he'll yell, "how many from Liverpool?" and they'll all scream with delight. And he can ask them, "are you 'appy?" and they'll all answer, "yeah!" It's great fun, let there be no mistake.
He is a pro, and he's learned with the passage of the years. He still sounds adenoidal, but he no longer says "Mairsey" in "Ferry Across the Mersey." He is smart. He mixes in his old hits, like "How Do You Do It" and "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying" - which still happens to be a very good song - with old rockers, he does "Rockin' Pneumonia," and "Sweet Little sixteen" and "Slow Down." And he's cute enough to have got toether with a remarkably solid band with a fine boogie pianist, Chris Findley, and Kingsley on bass.

Eccentric

Also, he is eccentric. For his encore he takes up a tambourine and beats a curiously-arranged version of "Give Peace A Chance," which was possibly another song altogether. Sort of cha-cha-cha. But he thanks us all for coming. We are very appreciative.
The Searchers, it said in the dollar fifty programme, are "one that did survive." It's true. Pass through any large British town and you're likely to see a poster for them on the wall. The programme also refers to them as the invasion's "special guests." This is accurate, too. They loathe the fact of being tied to the sixties, children of the Beatle boom inextricably tangled in the apron strings. Toby says they didn't take to them at Saratoga because they were "heavy metal Sixties pop," but all this nostalgia is a double-edged sword for the participants. If you're a working artist, you can't continually live in the past.
Frank Allen, who replaced Tony Jackson on bass, wears white fringed buckskin these days, and he employs a sardonic attitude to the extraordinary situation. There's a slight after-taste of bitter almonds. In the midst of all the gratitude and reverence that's been expended, it's quite palitable, ever so.
"You might not remember these songs," he tells the kids, "but yer moms and dads will." Or: "We're very impressed with the p.a. Maybe it'll pick up last year's applause." Or: "Last time we were here, we met the President. Yah. Mrs. Lincoln came, too." Or: "You've come to hear some nostalgia. Now we're going to shock you with this one," and then they did a 15-minute version of "Southern Man," complete with eight-minute guitar solo from McNally. Occasionally there would come this cry from behind, "how about doin' some of your old stuff!" The trouble with punks is they have no tolerance.
But this is true, too: that the Searchers are no longer the Searchers. Maybe they weren't right after Chris Curtis left. Certainly, they weren't when Tony Jackson left. And when you hang for grim life onto a name that's come to be associated with a particular thing, and then you don't fulfill that name, you're a little bit of a cheat. You forge your own double-edged sword.
Eventually, you'll always get cut by it, no matter the validity of your intentions, no matter that you do Lesley Duncan's "Love Song" and a medley of "You've Got A Friend" and "Sunday Morning Coming Down," and other stuff. That's undeniably quality. Besides, the harmonies were no longer there and the lead vocal was ineffectual. Weep a little, my friends for the Searchers.
FEAR not, though, for Billy J. His voice may have lost its resonance and texture, but his pizzazz has bloomed in proportion to the length of his shoulder-brushing, crimpers cut blond fluffy. When he flips across the stage and into the spotlight in a rush of white jacket and blondness, rushing immediately to the lip of the stage as if his life hung on the audience's response to him - which it may do yet - you're aware, not exactly that a star is being born, but that one's trying desperately to achieve gestation.
B.J. looks good enough to rate class groupie status, a fact that the weenies siezed on. It was not so much that they shrieked; no, but he had them on their feet for the first time that evening, and when he jumped right into the front row he even compelled them to stand on the seats. He spent a good deal of his time down there, singing to the front rows and the security guards - all the way through "Save Me" and a medley of old hits like "Do You Want To know A Secret," "Trains and Boats and Planes," "I'll Keep You Satisfied," "I Call Your Name" and "From A Window."
And when he climbed back up and they all proceeded to sit down again he was mortally offended. For the rest of the show seats were bouncing up and down with female poundage, and even if they proved to be dry after it was all over, it was through no fault of his.
Kramer has come to the States, and he wants to come back again, only bigger. The one way to do this was to be uninhibited. Thus, right at the end, he peeled off his jacket and then his shirt and tossed it to the crowd. Then he said, "I hope it's not long before we see you all again." He also sang "White Christmas," and as disbelief made our eyes cross, there slowly floated around the huge hall the swelling lines of Bing's hardy annual. They joined hands and swayed on the seats. It was truly moving. The secretaries went bananas.
Finally, before he went off, he said, "thank you very much again. Hope you liked the shirt." He only spoiled it just a little by calling us "ladies and gentlemen" all the time. The girls forgave him.
Then it was intermission time. The lights went up. There was not a crumb of scampi, not a chicken bone in sight. When they came down again, Nader announced that on July 14 NBC-TV was going to base a Midnight Special show around the British Rock Invasion. Everyone cheered.
He also said there might well be more British shows in the future. He'd like to put together Eric Burdon and the Animals. At this a good many of us laughed because, what with all his revivals, Mr. Nader may not be aware of Chas Chandler's current activities.
NADER had another fact up his sleeve, however. He said that in 1964 the only act that outsold the Beatles in the US was Herman's Hermits, and he's barely got this out when that same little blond kid, all pageboy prettiness, leaps out from behind the amps, and he's grinning with that old gamin' mischievousness, as if he's gonna drop a July 4 firecracker down Nader's back, and the seats are bobbing like spring mattresses, and - the cuteness of it! - he's going, "you know, I never missed you at all, at all, at all, at all . . ." on and on like Iggy Pop before the lobotomy.
Teen heart flutterer. "Hello, hello, I'm back again." And the Hermits are still all there, except that John Gaughn is now on lead. In fact, it's still all there, and it could be tomorrow. There's nothing revivalist, except the audience fervour.

Pap

Thrill to the little boy voice on "Wonderful World," "No Milk Today," "She's A Must To Avoid" and "I'm Into Something Good." Pure teenage pap entertainment, good/bad as ever was. "Dandy," sung gap-toothed Ray Davies-style, and "Leaning On A Lampost" - play upon the Englishness. Move to the piano; make a little speech. "This is a song written by a guy from the Hollies who can't be here tonight. His name's Graham Nash - 'Simple Man.'"
"This is one hell of a cute kid, Richard Graham Nash and the Hollies! Hah hah! And look at the way he's developed! He plays piano for God's sake. This kid could be big all over again."
". . . 'E puts on a good show, dun't 'e, mother?" "'E do that right enough, the little monkey."
Herman takes an English flag from a girl in the audience and waves it high. "You've all gotta sing this song. If you see somebody not singing it, smack 'is 'ead in, and then if we don't 'ave a good English sing-song we'll have a bloody good English fight!"
Thus "'Enery the Eighth" in Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and all accents West. It becomes apparent that these kids are not so tough underneath it all. They're a soft touch for panto, and cabaret and the old music hall. Like kids - and adults - everywhere.
"A big hand for the audience from us to you," yells Herman.
" . . . Richard, we gotta do more of dese things. The kids like him!"
" . . . Mind 'ow yer go, mother. The exit's over there."
"Let's 'ear everybody sing it now, "There's a kind of hush . . . all over the world . . . tonight . . ."

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